I have a favorite coffee mug.
It’s not even really a mug—it’s an oversized black teacup with a teal-blue handle and these glorious mosaic flowers in the colors of a Florida sunset: coral, red, dusty rose, with a little turquoise thrown in like a wink. It’s chipped on the bottom, and the glaze is cracked, but it’s mine. The kind of cup that feels like a hand you can hold.
This morning, I filled it with my usual—Fortado Nespresso with a splash of salted caramel syrup, topped with a ridiculous, self-indulgent cloud of foam—and set it down on a stone coaster that says “Oakville Grocery.” And just like that, I was back in Napa Valley. The paella at that little patio café with the string lights. The foie gras ravioli at Auberge du Soleil, which I still think about when someone asks, “What’s the best thing you’ve ever eaten?” I don’t even answer. I just sigh.
Isn’t that how food works? It sneaks up on you and stitches together a whole memory quilt without warning. It tethers us to each other when we’ve lost the words, when we’re too raw or too weary or too proud to say the thing that needs saying. You don’t have to know how to console someone after a miscarriage or a job loss or a broken marriage—you just show up with soup. Still steaming. That’s the language. You don’t have to know what to say. Food does the talking.
Food is the great equalizer. It humbles us. It nourishes us. It reminds us that we belong to each other. And in those moments when we don’t have the energy to speak or the strength to stand tall, it lets us sit and pass the bread. Even Jesus, when he wanted to be remembered, didn’t say write a theology or build a shrine—he said, “Eat. Drink. Remember me.”
Because food is remembering. It’s the scent of your grandmother’s cinnamon rolls, the sizzle of pancakes and bacon at your parents’ house, the bite of lime and cilantro in your first real street taco. It’s sensory time travel. And it doesn’t have to be fancy. Some of the holiest meals of my life have been delivery pizza with tired friends or scrambled eggs with someone I love, still in pajamas.
This issue is always my favorite to produce because I get to witness how people eat—and more importantly, why. I expanded my own palate this month, finally diving into Indian street food, with its chaotic harmony of spices and heat and sweetness that made me feel, oddly, like I was being hugged by someone’s grandmother I’ve never met. Food has a way of doing that—welcoming us in, no questions asked.
We come from different kitchens, different countries, different pain. But around the table? We’re just people—beautifully flawed and wildly hungry—for sustenance, for connection, for the grace that lives in the breaking of bread. May we never forget that.
Heather Anne Lee
Editor
